From fords theater where Abraham Lincoln was shot 150 years ago. James this is an interesting house that has a great history even before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. This house was built in the early 1850s by a german immigrant to america, William Petersen, and he used the house as a boardinghouse. Up to 10 or 12 people lived here at a time. This is a relic of 19th century civil war boardinghouse culture. Once upon a time, everybody lived in boardinghouses, congressmen, senators, even Vice President s lived in group homes. This house, aside from the history of being where Abraham Lincoln died, is an important part of antebellum and the civil war washington, d. C. , history. Aside from this being the lincoln death house, this is a great museum of immigrant culture in washington and boardinghouse life in washington, d. C. I have been coming here for years, making pilgrimages. I started coming here in 1986 when i joined the reagan administration, and i have been coming here for years. And i am very excited that this year, for the 150th anniversary there is going to be a big commemoration for Abraham Lincoln because in past years i am usually here alone. No one comes to the house on the night of the assassination. No one comes to honor lincoln. I might find one or two people when i sit on the steps of the Petersen House and contemplate what happened. It is interesting. A couple of years ago, the Parks Service almost arrested me sitting on the steps because the guard across the street accused me of being a homeless loiterer, and i tried to convince them that i had written books and tonight is the anniversary of the assassination. I serve on the council of advisors. 10 minutes later, two squad cars rolled up. The National Park Service Police questioned me and said, how do i know that you are not a homeless man who will damage the house . One of them came to his senses and rolled his eyes and asked me to enjoy the evening. I have had quite a time coming to this house, and sadly has been abandoned by the public for a long time, but this year will be different. Lincoln arrived at the theater at about 8 30 p. M. April 14, 1865. The play was underway. He was late. No one at the Petersen House noticed lincoln arrived. The street was pretty quiet then. People were going to the bars and taverns to celebrate the great Union Victory of the war. And the surrender of property lee on april 9. It was a quiet night on the street. Everyone was inside the theater. The play was underway so the carriage pulled up and stopped in front of the big gaslamp and lincoln went inside. And then around 10 15, the doors to fords theater burst open. Over 1000 people came rushing out the doors screaming. At first some people thought the theater was on fire. Then they heard the shouts. Lincoln has been shot. The president has been killed. Burn the theatre. Find the assassin. That got the attention of the residents of the boardinghouse. The first person who noticed what was happening was a guy named george francis, who lived on the first floor. He came out and walked into the street and he could only get half way across and people were screaming that the president was dead. He walked right up to the president s body as it was being carried across the street. Another boarder on the second floor, henry safford, heard the noise, too. He saw the commotion, and he heard the shouts that lincoln had been shot. Safford could not get to fords theater. There were so many people were outside in the street. So he retreated, came back to his house, and went up the stairs. He was up there he stood at the top of the staircase. He was up there watching as the soldiers pounded on the door of the house next door. They could not get in. He saw there was lincoln in the middle of the street being carried by soldiers and they did not know where to take the president. So safford went inside, got a candle, stood at the top of the staircase, and shouted, bring him in here. Dr. Leal heard that and shouted to the officers and soldiers take the president to that house. So they crossed the street and came up the stairs. And so, as lincoln was being carried up the staircase, he was still alive, unconscious. And the sight of Abraham Lincoln here at the top of the staircase was the last time the American People saw him alive. Dr. Leal came in this door. Dr. Leal came in this door. And he told safford, take us to your best room. Now, the hallway is narrow. It was already filled with the lincoln entourage, the doctors the soldiers. There was a narrow staircase on the right. Safford knew the best room was the front parlor, occupied by george and hilda francis, so he reached for the door here. It was locked. He went down to the second door here. This door was locked. Hilda francis was inside frantically getting dressed. She had seen the president being brought to the house through the front windows, so she was already dressed for bed, so she wanted to put on clothes. She did not unlock this story either. All that was left was this little room at the back of the hallway, which was occupied by a civil war soldier. But he was out for the evening. Safford led them to the back room here. You can see how narrow the hallway is. There is barely enough room for soldiers to stand on each side of lincoln and carry him down the hallway. They took him into this room and laid him on a spindle bed in the corner. Lincoln did not even fit on the bed. He was too tall. Dr. Leal ordered the soldiers to break off the foot of the bed, but it would not come off because it was integral to the construction of the bed. The bed would have collapsed. They had no choice but to lay Abraham Lincoln diagonally. At that point, too many people were in the room. It was hot. Dr. Leal ordered people out. He needed to examine the president. He knew that he had been shot in the head, but he did not know if he had other wounds. Once the doctors were alone, they stripped lincoln naked and examined him on the bed. As the doctors began the examination of lincoln, they observed he had no other wounds. They thought he might have been stabbed because almost everyone in fords theater had seen John Wilkes Booth flash the dagger on stage after he leaped from the box. He had the single shot behind the left ear. As lincoln was lying on the bed, mary lincoln and her entourage came through the front door of the Petersen House and went to the front parlor. We will go that way and see what mary lincoln did. When lincoln was first brought in this house, he had no bodyguard. The army was not here yet. And so strangers came into the house and observed lincoln and in that bed. They lingered in the hallways. It was not until 15 or 20 minutes later that lincoln was under the full protection of the u. S. Army. They then enter the house, and the soldiers and officers cleared out everyone who was unknown to them and did not belong here. Mary lincoln was frantic by then. She came through the house screaming, where is my husband . Where is my husband . Why didnt he shoot me . Mary lincoln entered this front parlor. And she sat on a horsehair sofa in this room. This was the front parlor of the borders, george and hilda francis, who quickly evacuated when the first lady was brought in. Mary lincoln would spend much of the night of april 14 and the Early Morning hours of april 15 in this room. She did not spend the night at her husbands side, she was with Close Friends. She was very upset. She could not stand to see her husband wounded and unconscious. So much of her time was here crying, sobbing. When clara harris, one of her theater guests that night, came in, and mary lincoln saw harris dress covered in blood and she began screaming. My husbands blood. My husbands blood. It was actually the blood of major rathbone. He had been stabbed by booth and bled heavily. Much of his blood was on his fiancees dress. Mary lincoln was wrong. It was not her husbands blood. It was major rathbones blood. Major rathbone came here and he leaned against the wall in the hallway and soon he collapsed and fainted. He was taken from the floor and taken home. Here is where mary lincoln spent much of the night. Secretary of war stanton and secretary of the navy wells arrived shortly arrived at the Petersen House shortly after lincoln was taken here. They were first at the home of secretary of state stewart. They heard the secretary of state had been stabbed to death. He almost was killed. He survived the wounds. When they got to his mansion near the white house they heard that lincoln had been shot here, ford theatre so they rushed over here. By the time they got here, thousands of people have gathered at the corner. The carriage could not push through the crowd. So there they were the two most , powerful members of the cabinet commanding the entire army and navy had to disembark from the carriage and push their way through to come into the house. Stanton came through this room door into this room and he saw , mary lincoln here. He decided he could not operate here in front of the first lady. So stanton came through this room and into the back parlor here, which was the francis bedroom. It was here on a table in the center of this room that the secretary of war began the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. Witnesses from fords theater were brought here. Stanton questioned them. A Union Army Soldier who knew the kind of shorthand sat at this table with stanton and took the first testimony of witnesses who saw John Wilkes Booth murder the president. Stanton spent most of the night in this room sending telegrams to Army Commanders in new york and throughout the northeast to organize the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. Throughout the night, he sent messengers from this room to the War Department telegraph office, and from that office, messages were brought back here. This room became the command post for the army of the United States under the secretary of war while lincoln was dying in the back bedroom. Stanton was one of lincolns favorites, he had an iron will. Lincoln called him his mars, his god of war. Even though they did not get along well before the election stanton once humiliated lincoln at a trial, lincoln knew that he was his right hand. He said stanton was the rocky shore upon which the waves of rebellion crashed and were broken. They were very close. Stanton was devastated, but he threw himself into the work. He was furious, fearsome barking commands, sending orders all over the country to hunt for John Wilkes Booth on trains, on boats. The orders went out everywhere. Catch the assassin, find him. The manhunt, which took 12 days, began in this room before lincoln even died. Once word got out that lincoln was here, this became the Magnetic Center of attraction for all important people in washington. Over 100 people made pilgrimages here during the night. Some came because they wanted to help. They knew that stanton would need them. Or the secretary of lincoln would need them. Some were friends of mary lincoln and wanted to comfort them. Others were journalists who were not allowed to enter the house. While this was happening thousands of people gathered in right in front of the house on the street. Some try to peek through the windows or hoist others up so they could look in, but the blinds were closed and they couldnt see. Throughout the night with regularity, official visitors came to the front door of the Petersen House and were admitted to see the dying president. More than a dozen doctors came. They knew they could not help lincoln. He had been shot through the brain. Some people came because they wanted to say one day that they had been here. They had seen the Great Lincoln on the night he was assassinated. Some came so that they could tell their grandchildren decades later, i was there the night that lincoln died. More people were in this house than really needed to be here. It was certainly appropriate that members of the cabinet come, but there were too many people in this little house. As Abraham Lincoln was dying. So mary lincoln would sometimes come out the front door of the parlor and venture to the back. Her female friends escorted her down this hallway. By then, the bed had been pulled away from the wall, so the doctors could treat lincoln and surrounded and treat lincoln and observe him. Several times during the night mary lincoln sat on the chair right here next to the bed pulled away from the wall. She really could not control herself. At one point when it sounded like lincoln was gasping and about to die, she let out a terrific shriek that so unnerved secretary of war stanton that he said take that woman out of this room, and do not let her back in again. It was a cruel thing to say. Mary lincoln did not have a lot of fans in washington, but it was not right to treat her that way in the presence of her dying husband. She was so upset and unnerved she really could not bear to be in this room. She only made a few trips back here throughout the night. She was not present when the president died. She was sitting in the front room. Lincoln lingered throughout the night. Many men would have died within minutes of being shot in the head the way he was, but he rallied. And daylight came. Around 6 00 in the morning, the secretary of the navy decided to wells decided to go for a walk. He had decided that some high official should be at lincolns side throughout the night in the morning hours. And he really left it to the secretary of war. Stanton to question witnesses, to begin the manhunt, begin the investigation to see if other cabinet members aside from seward had been marked for death. And wells was here that night more as a mourner and witness for lincoln, rather than a person who was active in the investigation and the activities that night. Wells found it hot and oppressive and humid that morning. He walked outside. A light rain had begun. He was astonished to find several thousand people keeping vigil in the streets outside. Many of them were black. Either freemen who had never been slaves, or freed slaves. Men and women, gathering in silence. And wells was touched by that. The street was silent. By that point, there was no shouting, there was no screaming. A hushed crowd stood outside. They asked wells, how is the president . What was to happen . He could not answer them. He came back, and by 6 30 the morning, it was obvious that lincoln was not going to last much longer. The breathing became labored less frequent. So doctors fished pocket watches out of their suit coats because they wanted to mark the moment when Abraham Lincoln died. And that came at 7 22 a. M. On the morning of april 15 1865. That is when lincolns heart made its last beat. The doctors recorded the time. And one of them said, he is dead. He is gone. Witnesses say no one spoke for a few minutes. And then the secretary of war stanton said to the reverend lincolns minister, doctor, will you speak . He said a prayer for lincoln. And then Edward Stanton pronounced words that were immortal and remembered wrong for the last 150 years. The secretary of war stood in this room and looked at Abraham Lincolns body and said, now he belongs to the angels. We remember it today as, now he belongs to the ages. But Extensive Research has revealed that it is best remembered by the stenographer tanner, whose pencil broke. His only lead pencil broke as he was writing down what was said in this room. But he remembered that stanton said angels. It is characteristic of his temperament and how he viewed his faith, the world. He wouldnt have said something as profound as now he belongs to the ages. I have no doubt that stanton said now he belongs to the angels. People filtered out of the room one by one. Stanton remained here alone with the president. And at that point, he took a small scissors or a razor and he approached lincolns body. And he cut off a lock of lincolns hair. Not for himself, but for mary jane wells, the wife of the secretary of the navy. One of mary lincolns few Close Friends in washington. And he sealed it in an envelope, wrote her name on it, and later, mrs. Wells framed the lock of hair with dried flowers that adorned lincolns coffin at the white house funeral. So that was really the first blood relic taken from Abraham Lincoln in this room by secretary stanton. Then, it was time to bring lincoln home to the white house. So the secretary of war sent for what was needed to convey the body of a dead president to the white house. Soldiers were sent and they returned from a military shop a few blocks away carrying a rectangular, plain pine box. An ammunition crates a rifle , crate with a screwtop lid. And so, when those soldiers rounded the corner and came up 10th street with that box, the crowd moaned because they knew intellectually, that the president had died. They saw the cabinet members leaving. They knew. But the sight of that coffin was the real refutation of their hopes that lincoln could live. So that coffin was taken down this hallway and laid on the floor right here. And before lincolns body was placed in the coffin, soldiers took a 35star flag, possibly a 36star flag for the final state added to the union during the war, and they wrapped lincolns naked body in the colors of the union. If they follow tradition, the stars would have been wrapped over lincolns face. Lincoln had ordered that the flag keep its full complement of stars during the civil war to symbolize that the union was permanent. And lincoln would not have minded being placed in that rough pine box. It was really the roughhewn coffin for a rail splitter. So stanton stood here as the soldiers took a screwdriver and screwed the lid on that box. There was no sound. You could literally hear the squeaking sound of the screws tightening and the lid being placed on. And the president was carried out this room, through that hall to the front door, down that curving staircase where a simple carriage awaited him and a military escort was there. It was not fancy. There was no band, no national colors, regimental flags. The officers were all bareheaded. And they escorted lincoln home to the white house. That is not the end of the story of this house, the Petersen House. Once all the government officials had left, once the president s body was gone, once stanton left, the house was open. No one was here. It was no longer under guard. Anyone could come into this house, and anyone who lived in this house could do whatever they wanted in this room. William petersen was furious that muddy boot tracks had soiled his carpets. And when he came into this room and he saw bloody sheets, bloody towels, bloody handkerchiefs he got so angry he opened one of these windows and threw a lot of that material out of the window into the yard behind. Two brothers who lived in the house, one was a cameraman, a photographer, the other one a painter. And they decided to bring up a bulky camera and photograph the deathbed. It still had many bloody sheets on it. So, they pushed the bed back into the corner to get a better photograph of the room. So they set up the camera at that end of the room and pointed the lens towards the bed and towards this hallway. They opened the front door so the Morning Light streamed down this hallway. And they took one or two exposures of Abraham Lincolns deathbed, which were lost for almost 100 years. I consider that photograph to be the most vivid and shocking and sad historical photo in American History. No one knows why they did it. They never tried to commercialize it. They didnt try to make multiple copies, sell them commercially but it is an incredible and touching relic of the mayhem of what happened in this room that night. One interesting thing, even though a photograph was taken in this room shortly after lincolns body was taken out for some reason, we havent discovered any period photographs from 1865 taken of the Petersen House after the assassination. Matthew brady went inside fords theater and took a number of photographs. People took photographs of the stable where booth kept his horses. They photographed other places associated with the assassination, but for some reason, photographers did not set up their cameras in front of the Petersen House and take photos the day after, the week after. It is a bit of a historical mystery. I have looked for decades to find period photographs taken of the Petersen House shortly after lincoln died. But havent found any. No one i know has found any. Just one of the lingering mysteries of the assassination. Interestingly, private William Clark came back the next day the soldier who lived in this room. He was out all night celebrating the Union Victory. And that night, he slept in the very bed in which Abraham Lincoln died. He wrote a letter to relatives saying, well, i am sleeping in the bed where the president died. The same coverlet that covered his body now covers me. Strangers come, they beg to see the room. They offer money to come and view the room. If you dont watch them, they try to steal things. They try to steal little bits of cloth, the sheets something from , the room. So souvenir hunters were trying to raid this room within hours of the president s death. The coverlet is long gone, stolen at the Illinois State fair at the turn of the century. Some of the pillowcases survived and are in the collection of the park service at fords theater. And the sheets were all divided up into little swatches and all over the country in the museums and private collections, one can find little swatches of the sheets that were on Abraham Lincolns bed. Many of them stained with his blood. This room looks very much like it did the night Abraham Lincoln was brought here and died the next morning. The prints are the same ones on the walls that night and the carpeting is identical, the wallpaper is identical. In fact, a number of artists came to this room and sketched it and also described it. We also know from the photographs taken by the brothers what this part of the room looked like. And the bed, of course, is no longer here. That is part of a sad story about the petersen family. In 1871, William Petersen was found unconscious on the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution the oldcastle. He had poisoned himself. The police revived him, and he confessed that he had been taking laudanum often for several years. He died. In 1871 in the front parlor of this house, William Petersens body was laid out. Four months after he died, his wife died. Anna died, and her body was brought to this house and laid she, too, was laid out in this house. Only six years after Abraham Lincoln died in their house, both petersens were dead. And both were laid out in this very house. Interesting footnote, after annas death, an Auction Company was brought in to sell the contents. Once again, strangers gathered outside, came into the house came down the halls, came into the parlor. The auction took place on the site. The two most expensive things at the auction were the sofa in the front room where mary lincoln spent most of the night. That went for 15. The bed upon which Abraham Lincoln died sold for 80, which was eight or 10 times what it should have cost as simply a bed. So an early historian and souvenir hunter recognized the value of the materials in this house and bought a number of things, including the deathbed and some of the other relics from this back room. That bed was later purchased by a Chicago Candy millionaire, charles guenther, for 100,000. It is now in chicago at the old Chicago Historical society. The Petersen House had an interesting history after lincoln died. It was not immediately seized upon as an Important National monument. The petersens moved back in after a few days. It became a boardinghouse again. Then, a visionary historian, who loved Abraham Lincoln and was obsessed with honoring lincoln occupied this house. And he created a Lincoln Museum in the basement and in these rooms. And for a small price, visitors from all over the country could come to the house where lincoln died, which it was known as properly, and come to this room. Over decades, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of americans came and visited this room when it was a privately operated museum. It was not until decades later that the National Park service took custody of the Petersen House and restored it to its original appearance, as it looked on the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The Petersen House is one of my favorite historical sites in washington. Partly because it is not gigantic and grand like Abraham Lincolns white house. It is not huge like fords theater, where an audience of 1500 or 1800 sat and watched the mayhem that happened across the street. What i like about the Petersen House is the intimacy. When i was working on my books about the lincoln assassination, i would often come to the Petersen House at hours when i knew there would be very few visitors. I have stood in this room many times all by myself and imagined what it mustve been like to stand here when Abraham Lincoln was brought down the hallway and laid on the bed in this room. And the emotion and sadness of that night and that morning really comes alive for me when i am in this room. In fact, when i wrote about lincoln coming to the Petersen House and dying in this room, i wrote some of my notes while i for my book, manhunt, while i stood in this room with a notebook and imagined what it must have been like to have been here and stand in this spot when Abraham Lincoln was lying on a bed in this room and dying the when he died the next morning. I really feel lincolns presence when im in this house and when i am in this room. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] all weekend long, American History tv is joining our Cox Communications Cable Partners to showcase the history of topeka, kansas. To learn more, visit cspan. Org citiestour
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